


Back to School Blues

by Zoeleo



Series: Rara Avis [11]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bullying, Childhood Friends, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Meet-Cute, School, Temper Tantrums, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 16:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14856593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoeleo/pseuds/Zoeleo
Summary: There's a long list of places Jason would rather be than returning to Gotham Academy. Acapulco and Mordor among them. He struggles through his first day back, as he's reacquainted with old enemies and insecurities. But maybe this time around he'll also get the chance to make a new friend or two.





	Back to School Blues

**Author's Note:**

> The long awaited meet-cute between Jason and Tim... Can it be a meet-cute if it's just friends, not romantic partners? 
> 
> I'd like to make one note: There's a non-native English speaker in this short, and I've tried writing him to reflect that. The errors in his speech are intentional and meant to mimic speech patterns of an Arabic speaker trying to navigate the lawless linguistic wasteland that is English. I spent almost an hour watching "common mistakes Arabic speakers make in English" videos on Youtube and read a couple IESL guides in an effort to be as realistic as possible and not mere caricature. These common mistakes include: forgetting the "be" verb in sentences, putting adjectives before the noun they describe, and using "more" as a synonym for "a lot."
> 
> I have also been informed that Cuban and Mexican Spanish are completely different, so Jason having learned Spanish from his Cuban neighbors wouldn't do him much good if he ran away to Mexico - but _he_ doesn't necessarily know that... So... 
> 
> If you see any big ole errors, give me a heads up! Otherwise, enjoy!

“Riley?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“It’s your job to keep me safe, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And that means going wherever I go, right?”

“Of course.”

“And my mental health is as much as a priority as my physical health, right?”

“Uh. Yeah. Jase, where are you going with—”

“Let’s go to Mexico.”

“What?”

“The airport is only 30 minutes from here. We could catch the first flight and be in Acapulco before dinner. Bruce gave me a card for emergencies; we can get tickets with that. I’ll call Bruce and Alfred when we land to them know we’re safe so they don’t worry. And we can—I dunno, live on the beach or something. I can find a job. I don’t think their child labor laws are the same as here and—”

“Whoa, whoa. Kid, we are not running away to Mexico,” Riley laughs and drops a hand between Jason’s shoulder blades.

Intended to be a comforting gesture, it also puts his fingers within easy reach of the loop at the top of Jason’s backpack in case he decides to make a mad dash.

“Besides, I don’t think I’d make it there for very long. I don’t speak Spanish.”

“But I do!” Jason tilts his head back to fix Riley with a pair of obscenely large sorrowful eyes. “ _Yo hablo español! La familia que vivía en el apartamento debajo de nosotros era Cubana. Yo lo hablo muy bien!_ I know all the important stuff: _¿Donde esta el baño? ¿Cuánto valen? ¿Cuál tipo de carne es? ¿Quién es este cabrón?_ See? I’ll be your translator. We could totally make it.”

“Jase,” Riley sighs, “I admire the effort, but no. I’m not helping you run away to Mexico just to avoid going to school. Besides, your family would miss you.”

“We could… We could come back to visit over the holidays? Like Dick,” Jason pleads.

“It’s not the same. Dick is all grown up.” Legally anyways. Based on some of his hijinks and a diet almost exclusively composed of Krocky Krunch and Fruity Pebbles, Riley’s not completely convinced Bruce’s oldest should be considered an adult. “Besides, it can’t be all that—“ Riley cranes his neck back to look up at the imposing stone façade of Gotham Academy, “bad.”

He grimaces and gives Jason a push. The boy shambles forward and reluctantly climbs the front steps, looking more like he’s on his way to carry the One Ring to Mount Doom than towards an education. Riley follows, the Samwise to his Frodo. He catches up to him in the front hall. Students in button-up shirts, blazers and plaid skirts perambulate about them, shooting curious glances in their direction. A few girls giggle and Riley drops his gaze to his scuffed boots and jeans, feeling more self-conscious than he has in years.

Bruce had never stipulated any kind of dress code and Riley had taken full advantage. He’d take jeans and a t-shirt over slacks and oxfords any opportunity. Jason had complained about the unfairness of it while Alfred helped him with his tie at the breakfast table. Riley had chuckled and ruffled his hair, reminding him uniforms were only a requirement for students at Gotham Academy. Now, under the weight of the critical stares of pubescent females, he’s reconsidering his decision not dressing to match his charge. He shivers. Teenage girls are terrifying. 

Jason pulls a square of paper out of his pocket and neatly unfolds it along the creases to reveal a class schedule. He runs his finger along the first column and hovers it over the first square. Then, with a pitiful exhalation he starts trudging morosely down the hall to the right. 

“So, where are we going?” Riley prompts. 

“Home room with Mrs. Krueger. Then Social Studies and Math,” Jason mumbles without changing his pace or encouraging any further conversation.

“Ooookay,” Riley whispers himself and strolls after him.

They hit the end of the hall and head up a flight of stairs. He tries to give Jason a bit of breathing room so it’s less obvious he’s tailing him. But judging by the titters and raised eyebrows their presence elicits – it doesn’t fool any of the little snots. He winces, hating that his company is causing Jason grief. The kid has gone through enough in his short life – he shouldn’t have to put up with being mocked because of Riley on top of everything. It’s not Jason’s fault his father’s fame puts him at risk, and it’s far from funny that it does. 

His mood sours further when he enters the classroom and finds a stand-off taking place. There are five rows of seats, six seats across. Jason is seated at a desk in the fourth row next to the windows along the right side of the room where a sneering blond boy looms threateningly over him.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you again, Todd. What, did that public school not even want you? Had to have your daddy pay to let them take you back here when you got kicked out again?” the boy taunts.

“Didn’t get kicked out, Eliot,” Jason mumbles between gritted teeth.

The other boy ignores the correction and picks up Jason’s stack of textbooks and notebooks off the desk.

“Move your shit. This isn’t your seat. Freaks who need a babysitter like you sit in the back,” the boy jeers.

He tosses the books carelessly onto a desk in the back row. They hit with enough force that they slide off the wood veneer and topple loudly to the floor. Riley glances around the room in outrage. _Where the hell is the teacher and why aren’t they getting involved in this?_ He doesn’t see an adult sitting behind the teacher’s desk or standing at the whiteboard at the front of the room. This is bullshit. He clenches his fist and advances, determined to put some fear of God into this Biff wannabe, when a grip on his bicep stops him.

“Leave them.”

He looks down in astonishment, staring at the calloused olive-skinned hand holding his arm. It belongs to a well-built man in a black suit with a slim black tie. The length and cut of his jacket doesn’t quite hide the Glock at his hip. If he were wearing sunglasses he would have looked like he was auditioning for a role in the next M.I.B. movie. 

“Soon, he will forget and find someone new to bully. To get between them will make it worse. Trust me,” the man intones with the surety of experience. 

Deep-set eyes slant to the back of the room where two chairs sans desks wait beneath a periodic table of the elements. Riley takes the cue and sits with him, but keeps an eye on the situation as Jason fumes but submits. He angrily gathers up his backpack and stalks to the desk his persecutor had thrown his other belongings. Only once he’s seated, head laying over crossed arms and turned towards the windows, does Riley give the other man his attention.

“Riley Jamison,” he says be way of introduction.

The man takes it, giving a quick firm squeeze and a nod.

“My name is Amell. I heard Wayne was hiring someone for his son. Good gig?”

Riley nods, “Good gig. Great kid. And you?”

Amell points his chin towards a thin-necked boy wearing bulky headphones and bobbing his head along to something Riley can just barely hear the bass of.

“I with Subhi Al-Raifi. His father big in the petroleum business, owns more refineries,” Amell explains when Riley doesn’t recognize the name.

“Ah… Are Subhi and Jason friends?” Riley asks abruptly, hopefully.

Amell shakes his head, “Jason not a bad boy. But, he and Subhi not in the same… “ His brow furrows as he searches for the word.

“Clique?”

The other bodyguard shakes his head in incomprehension and brings his hands together, fingers forming a—

“Circle? Not in the same circles?”

Riley is awarded with a smile and a raised finger.

“Yes!”

It’s a shame, Riley thinks, that they’re not. It would be nice to have another adult to hang out with. They could talk about disarming techniques or the pros and cons of IWB versus OWB holsters or… something. He wonders if Amell is a practicing Muslim, or if he’d be down for grabbing a beer sometime. He opens his mouth to ask when Mrs. Krueger finally makes an appearance, shuffling in with Starbucks in hand. Wisps of greying hair fall in her face out of a half-undone bun.

“Okay, okay, okay everyone. I’m here. Get in your seats,” she orders dismissively while juggling her coffee and bags into a pile on her desk. 

Once everything is arranged to her liking, her gaze snaps up and over the classroom. She pushes her loose hair back from her face and blows out a big breath between ballooning cheeks.

“Alright everyone, some quick announcements before the pledge. Lacrosse try outs are this afternoon. Boys you’ll be meeting with Coach Toler after school on the lacrosse field; ladies, we’ll be having our try outs same time on the track. Show up and I’ll give you 2 extra credit points on your next biology quiz. Yes, I’m aware that’s bribery. No, I don’t care. Neither does Headmaster Voorhees. She wants to beat Newark Academy into the ground just as much as I do. A reminder: the picnic tables in the atrium are supposed to be reserved for upperclassmen only. You’ve still got two more years to earn the privilege. Oh. And everyone welcome back Jason Todd. He’s returning to us after year away.”

The room goes dead quiet and all heads swivel to locate the interloper.

“That wasn’t a suggestion, kids. Say welcome back,” she barks impatiently.

“ _Welcome back, Jason_ ,” the class recites dutifully.

Riley bristles at the poorly muffled snickers that follow. When he glances over at Jason, his ward has his head buried in his arms. All Riley can see of him are the tips of his ears, beet red in mortification. 

“All right now, everyone stand for the pledge. Or not I suppose. It’s your right as an American to not stand if you don’t want to, but if you choose to sit I hope you spend that time seriously contemplating all the brave service men and women who have died to give you that right to sit,” she menaces.

Riley’s mouth twitches. Sometimes he’s amazed by what civilians assume _all of the brave service men and women_ care about. There was the odd person here and there who enlisted out of a sense of patriotic duty or family tradition; but most of the people he’d gone through boot camp with couldn’t afford college and had just wanted a steady paycheck after high school. He wishes he had joined for more selfless reasons, but even he had only joined out of a misguided aspiration to win back some of his father’s affection. He thought if he served his country, a suitably masculine endeavor, it could mitigate some of the disgust his sexuality had evoked. It hadn’t. 

Still, he stands. For all of his friends who never finished their tours, for all of those who were still out there, and for those who had made it back in body if not in spirit. For Ashton and Clark and Garcia and Kerrie and Javier and Washington. He holds his hand over his heart and repeats the words he’s chanted almost every day since first grade. Amell and Subhi stay seated, unsurprisingly. And in the corner of his eye, Jason stays slumped miserably. He doesn’t feel anger or disrespected by it, just aching empathy. 

Homeroom lets out not long after and Riley and Amell part ways. Side-eyes and snide whispers haunt them from one class to the next and when the lunch bell finally rings he stands; ready to shadow Jason in the crush of chest-height bodies moving towards the cafeteria en masse. But Jason presses against the tide, slipping through students like a salmon heading up river. Riley has a harder time maneuvering his bulk through the crowd, accidentally shouldering several teens aside. He apologizes and jostles onward. He ends up tracking Jason into another wing of the school, away from the main classrooms and closer to the auditorium. The halls are almost empty here. He loses sight of his target when Jason dodges around a corner, but catches a glimpse of the door to the bathroom on the hall slamming shut.

Riley stares at the door. Going in after Jason would be the wrong move, but he’s not sure what that leaves as the right move – so he crosses his arms, leans against the wall, and waits. His stomach growls loudly in the deserted space. He wonders idly what they’re serving for lunch. Bruce had said Gotham Academy had one of the most highly rated school cafeterias on the East Coast, so he didn’t need to worry about bringing a lunch if he didn’t mind grabbing a tray with the students. It definitely couldn’t be worse than Army grub. His stomach gnaws on itself noisily and he makes a mental note to at least bring a snack tomorrow in case he gets hungry between classes. Or Jason pulling another disappearing act. 

How long has he been in there now? Riley hasn’t heard the toilet flush or the sink run. He steps away from the wall and knocks on the door.

“Hey Jase, everything okay in there?”

No response. A sudden, horrifying thought strikes – that this wouldn’t be the first time Jason snuck out through a bathroom window at school. He jolts forward, hand pressing the lever of the doorknob down. It swings open a few inches before being violently slammed back in his face.

“Go away! Don’t come in!” Jason screams.

He can hear wet gasps and ragged gulps on the other side of the wood panel. Riley sighs and slides down the wall next to the door, stretching his legs across the linoleum tiling of the floor. May as well get comfortable, he’s probably going to be here a while. He’s still not used to his charge’s tendency towards tears. Not that he blames the kid; Jason’s gone through more shit than Riley had at his age. Throw an equally shitty day on top of that… At least Riley has a six-pack of cold ones in his fridge to wind down with when he gets home, Jason doesn’t even have that to look forward to. Just homework. 

Emotions burn so strong in Jason, it’s exhausting to witness sometimes, Riley can’t imagine what it must actually _feel_ like. And while he adores his charge (it’s scary how quickly the kid has wormed his way into Riley’s heart – he’d take a bullet for Jason any day, even without getting paid for it), he has no idea how to handle his outbursts. He’s a bodyguard not a therapist. 

“You want to talk about it?” he asks and immediately regrets it when Jason roars back, “No! Leave me alone!”

The door rattles in its frame; savagely enough that Riley’s sure Jason is kicking it. He really doesn’t want to call Alfred and interrupt his day. God only knows how many chores and errands the butler has to run each day to keep a house that size in order. Maybe he should call the school’s guidance counselor? He retrieves the phone Bruce gave him for work and is scrolling through the contacts when a polite cough interrupts. He drags his eyes away from the screen to the boy standing in the hall.

Young, is Riley’s first impression. Younger than Jason. Heck, he almost looks too young to be out of elementary school and attending the Academy at all, but he’s here – so either he’s older than he looks or is smart enough to have skipped a few grades. He’s thin and pale. His hair hangs in front of his eyes in a fine dark curtain that he hides behind like a shield. Riley’s father would itch to take a pair of shears to it; anything longer than a crew cut was an abomination in his books. Aside from his hair, he rather resembles a ten year old accountant. His shirt and blazer are perfectly ironed. His collar and cuffs are prim and precise. Instead of a backpack he carries a plain black messenger bag reminiscent of a briefcase.

“Can I help you?” Riley asks.

The boy bites his lip so hard the skin goes white. He takes a long deliberate breath as if about to launch into a weighty speech on the importance of filing taxes on time and—

“Is in there him?” he squeaks.

His face flushes neon pink. He swallows audibly and tries again, his grip on the strap of his bag across his chest trembling.

“Is Jason in there?” he forces out in a rush.

Riley raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah, but I don’t think he’s real keen on company right now, kid. Whatever it is, can it wait til tomorrow?” he tries to gently dissuade the boy.

The child shakes his head, bangs swinging across big blue peepers. He kneels in front of the bathroom door and carefully arranges his bag on the ground next to him. He knocks on the door and clears his throat. He waits. When there’s no response, he knocks again and clears his throat.

“Hi, Jason? My name is Tim, Tim Drake. I don’t know if you remember me, but I remember you from last year. Eliot Frye was shoving my head in a toilet? And you came in, but instead of laughing or leaving you kicked him off of me and then shoved his head in the toilet and asked him how it felt. I think you got in trouble for that. I’m sorry.” 

Tim pauses and fiddles with his tie. He chews on his lip and Riley’s fair amazed he hasn’t bit the thing off yet. 

“Anyways. I wanted to say thank you for that since I didn’t really get the chance to before. And that—I’m sorry the people here are such—such _dickbags_ ,” he spits the last word out in a nervous stammer. “But not everyone is. There are some nice people. And I know you don’t want to be here, so maybe it’s kind of selfish, but I’m glad that you are. And, um… If you ever want to eat lunch with my friends and me you can. We sit at the table closest to the announcement board.”

There’s a beat of silence. Tim nods to himself as if he expected the rejection. He gingerly gets off his knees and picks his bag back up. He gives the door one last look.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to though. It’s okay. I just wanted to say thank you.”

With that, he trots down the hallway, head hanging dejectedly. It’s silent in the hall once more. Riley turns back to the bathroom door. Three dragging minutes pass. Then he hears faint shuffling and the splash of water from a faucet. The door creaks ever so slightly open and Jason slips through sheepishly. Riley gets to his feet. He pretends not to notice Jason’s red face or swollen eyes, or the beads of water on his eyelashes. He lays a cautious hand on Jason’s shoulder and the simple fact that the boy doesn’t duck away from it is more of an apology for his tantrum than words would be.

They trek back through the halls once again, retracing their steps into the main building of the academy. Jason hesitates at the double-doors of the cafeteria. He fingers the straps of his backpack, squares his shoulders, and passes through. Pride swells in Riley. They head directly for the buffet style line, which has thinned out by this point and grab trays. Gerri, the sixty-something lunch lady blushes furiously when Riley smiles at her and asks how her day is going. She adjusts her hair net and gives him an extra chicken cutlet with his potatoes and green beans, and a second pudding cup. He gifts the pudding cup to Jason who accepts it with an impish grin. The diet Alfred has the kid on really is unfairly strict. 

Together they weave through the tables. The gossip and nasty looks from earlier are still there, but Jason bears it with steel in his spine. The announcement board is two tables away. Riley can see Tim, Subhi, Amell, and two girls sitting there as promised. Jason halts and Riley barely avoids tripping over his heels. He looks down in concern. Jason tips his head back to meet his gaze, lips twisted in a skeptical smile.

“If I sit at that table… I’m signing up to be called a nerd for the rest of my life at this school.”

Riley ticks his head to the side and makes a show of thinking. He was never called a nerd in high school. He didn’t sit at the table with the kids who got swirlies and wedgies when teachers weren’t nearby. He’d played on the football team and wore a letterman’s jacket and was on homecoming court… And he’d fretted constantly under the stress of maintaining that perfect All-American boy image: only wearing certain brands of clothing, pretending he watched Miami Vice instead of Star Trek, flirting with girls he didn’t even like, while second-guessing every casual touch amongst his teammates, terrified he’d be found out and ostracized, censoring what he said, and shamefully keeping quiet when he should have spoken up—no, stood up to his friends…

“Eh, being a jock is overrated,” he shrugs, “And there’s way worse things to be called.”

Jason frowns, a line forming between his brows as he considers Riley’s contribution. It disappears in a blink and Jason nods.

“As long as I can still play baseball, I guess being a nerd isn’t so bad. Just don’t tell Dick, okay? He was like a mathlete. King nerd. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Cross my heart,” Riley promises.

He draws two quick slashes over his chest somberly, trying to not to laugh. At that moment, Tim’s head lifts. His eyes scan the cafeteria. When they fall on them, the corner of his mouth turns up slightly and he raises a hand. Jason returns the wave and the timid mousy smile turns into an exuberant beam of pearly teeth. 

“Okay, let’s be nerds then,” Jason says and strides forward.


End file.
